Man Blows one of the Flutes (Israel Antiquities Authority)
A new study of a discovery made in Israel found that 12,000-year-old tiny flutes were used to imitate the sounds of predators so as to attract birds of prey for capture. The discovery was made in the Einan-Ein Malacha site, located in the Hula Valley in northern Israel, which was first excavated in 1955 by French expeditions, and in 1996-2005 by a joint expedition of the French Center and the Antiquities Authority, led by Francois Walla from the French National Center for Research (CNRS) and Dr. Hammoudi Khalaily from the Israel Antiquities Authority. In the settlement of rounded buildings and the houses of the hunter-gatherers, bones of a variety of animals, including poultry, were found.
A new article by Dr. Laurent Davin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University and the French Research Center in Jerusalem (CRFJ) and Dr. José-Miguel Tajero (University of Vienna, Austria and University of Barcelona, Spain) published in the prestigious scientific magazine Nature Scientific Report, reveals that tools Rare 12,000-year-old sound-producing prehistoric ones, uncovered in the Hula Valley, were used as a kind of tiny flutes. They may have been used for hunting, music, or some kind of communication with the birds.
As part of the study of the material culture and the burial offerings from the Einan-Malaha site from the final Natufian period (12,000 BC), Dr. Laurent Davin, a post-doctoral student at the Hebrew University and the French Research Center in Jerusalem (CRFJ) examined, among other things, the bones of birds found as part of the excavation. According to Prof. Tal Simmons (of Virginia Commonwealth University). These are mainly wintering waterfowl with few raptors. Dr. Davin noticed markings on the seven tiny wing bones of common terns and songbirds. Together with Dr. José-Miguel Tajero (University of Vienna, Austria and University of Barcelona, Spain), they investigated the nature of the marks and discovered that they were extremely tiny holes drilled on the surface of the bones, which are hollow by nature.
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Dr. Hammoudi Khalaily holds one of the flutes (IAA)
In order to establish how the instruments were used, the team of researchers, in collaboration with other researchers (Aurelia Bourbon and Olivier Torney (CNRS), created replicas of the original instruments. As part of an experiment carried out on the replica, it was discovered that the instruments produce different sounds and it was concluded that they were flutes. When they compared the sound of the flute to the sounds of dozens of bird species found in Ein-Malha, it was found that the sound of the flute is similar to that produced by birds of prey – common hawk and peregrine falcon.
The researchers said one possibility is that the flute holders were located near waterfowl and that it can be assumed that the birds of prey, who heard the call of the whistle, came closer to the source of the sound – something that caused the waterfowl to fly in all directions, thus making it easier to catch them.
In addition, said the researchers, it is likely that in the resulting chaos, the birds of prey themselves were also hunted, whose claws were used, among other things, as decoration – or to pierce bones and make additional whistles. It is also possible that the sounds produced by the flutes served different roles in the social-cultural-symbolic fabric of the hunter-gatherers in Ein-Malha.
This finding adds to further evidence of the complexity of the world and the sounds of the people of the Natopian culture according to Dana Shaham, a PhD student from the Hebrew University specializing in ancient art.
According to Dr. Khalaily from the Antiquities Authority, “If the tool was indeed used for hunting, then this is the earliest evidence of sound production as a means of hunting. In most of the sites contemporaneous with Einan, these vessels are getting weathered, but fortunately they were discovered by careful and gentle water filtration of the findings.”
He added that this discovery provides important new data concerning the ancient hunting methods, and joins the variety of prehistoric tools that characterize the beginning of the transition to agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals in the southern Levant.
